From Ebola to the End Times, it’s an endless litany detailing a terrible future. They dwell on it. And they resign themselves to it for one reason, because it’s easy, because that terrible future doesn’t ask anything of them today.

A guy I grew up with - his name is Ron - sent me this link with a good question I suspect many ponder when they think about the preparedness movement: Can a prepper also be an optimist or are the two mutually exclusive?

I can easily see why someone would ask that question. After all, preppers by definition spend time and money preparing themselves not for exciting innovations, exotic vacations, or challenging physical fitness competitions. Instead, they are preparing for bad things to happen which may cause death, property damage and significant financial hardship.

So if you're committed to preparing for death, property damage and significant financial hardship, isn't your world view necessarily pessimistic?

Yes and no.

Take your typical hard core prepper. He or she has plenty of guns, storable food, some gold and silver coins, and an assortment of consumables stored in bulk. They have at least one four wheel drive vehicle and make it a habit to consume "doom porn" news of financial meltdowns, severe weather reports, predictions about a rash of upcoming earthquakes, and geopolitical squabbles. They believe they need to be ready to be off grid for a period of time due to the possibility of one of a number of perils that could disrupt the grid for a length of time.

This sounds rather dystopian. But implied in their planning processes - perhaps subconsciously - is that there's something further down the timeline worth living for. For example, most preppers I know are not preparing to survive a nuclear war. While it's quite possible to do (albeit somewhat expensive), many preppers I know say "there's no coming back from that...so I am not preparing for that contingency."

What that tells me is that in the prepper's mind, the prepper believes that there must be some remaining time in the future - after a disaster - during which life will be enjoyable. In a sense, preppers are simply increasing the odds that their life will be enjoyable long term by preparing for a period of hard times at some point in the future.

Preparedness smooths out some of the downside risks so that future years can be spent enjoying life rather than dealing with setbacks caused by a job loss, historic flooding like we're seeing in Houston at the moment, a period of economic malaise, or just the fear of any of those events happening. As our Mormon friends like to say, "if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear."

Are some preppers pessimistic? Absolutely. So are a lot of non-preppers. Yet what I find is that preppers are more willing to entertain the notion that:

things are not always as they seem, and

there are the ways to hedge against that uncertainty.

Back to the link I shared at the beginning of this post - consider this quote from it:

Everything is a worst case scenario with these people.

From Ebola to the End Times, it’s an endless litany detailing a terrible future. They dwell on it. And they resign themselves to it for one reason, because it’s easy, because that terrible future doesn’t ask anything of them today.

When is the last time you heard one of these people speak of Tomorrowland? That bright shining optimistic future, that better world, the one we ourselves can create now if we only had the will and determination?

Aside from the political overtones in the text, let's address these comments assuming they were aimed at the preparedness community.

"Everything is a worst case scenario with these people."

We do tend to think of the worst case scenario (WCS) - I do it regularly - in large part to help me understand the universe of possible outcomes from a particular disaster. It doesn't mean I think the worst case scenario will happen, but if I can have some plan for the worst case scenario, then I can manage less severe scenarios as well. Thinking WCS doesn't make you a pessimist - it only means you are willing to entertain the full spectrum of the possible in an effort to deal with it and hedge against the risk.

From Ebola to the End Times, it’s an endless litany detailing a terrible future. They dwell on it.

Our parents and grandparents dwelled on the Cold War. Polio. The Great Depression. Just like Ebola, these things were real. But they also learned that civilization matures, advances, and moves forward. The notion that modern preppers are breaking ground in their worrying about possible disasters is misguided and inaccurate.

And they resign themselves to it for one reason, because it’s easy, because that terrible future doesn’t ask anything of them today.

What's easy about contemplating hard times? And if preppers are taking action because of "that terrible future," then it's clear that they are being asked to do something today.

When is the last time you heard one of these people speak of Tomorrowland? That bright shining optimistic future, that better world, the one we ourselves can create now if we only had the will and determination?

Well, if you need a precise date, August 24, 2015 comes to mind - the date Pivot Points went on sale on Amazon. It's a book devoted to the notion that, through a culture of preparedness, we can create "that bright shining optimistic future, that better world, the one we ourselves can create now if we only had the will and determination."

Preppers are not necessarily pessimists. They simply hold a different world view, where the need to prepare is more salient than it is with others. This saliency stems from a heightened sensitivity to the various perils we face. Their efforts to prepare to weather the storm is evidence that there's life worth living after the storm.